Daily Inspiration: Meet Courtney Lloyd

Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Lloyd.

Hi Courtney, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I stumbled upon theatre at 9 years old and it became a second home for me. This theatre group, who put on children’s musicals, was way more organized than my home life, and I thrived in the structure it provided. Finding a place where fully expressing myself was celebrated, was the best gift I could have received.
I never wondered what I would do with my life because I was always busy doing a play and I figured I would just keep doing that. In high school, I spent countless hours in the theatre working on plays. I also took a film class and shot my first short. I started to connect to films that inspire me to this day like, Diva, Blue (from the Three Colors trilogy) Basquiat, Le Grand Bleu and A Man and a Woman. After school and working for a while, I returned to college to finish my bachelor’s degree. Hugh O’Gorman, Head of Acting at CSULB encouraged me to audition for grad school. I was accepted into the MFA in Acting program at USC and was so happy to continue acting and stay here in California close to my grandma.

After graduating, I met a cinematographer, Ali Ivosevich, through boxing. She was ready to shoot and I had a script. We started production on our first film together and have since made two more short films and a fashion campaign that screened at New York Fashion Week. We focus on telling women’s stories. Our films have been Official Selections of the Philadelphia Women’s Film Festival, The Los Angeles Women’s Film Festival and the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. As a project creator, I have worn many hats including writer or co-writer, location scout, director and editor of our films.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My grandma passed away at the end of my first year at USC. My dad, who had battled cancer for eight years, passed away in the Fall semester of my third and final year and my oldest brother had a heart attack the following day. He survived, but It was really hard times to say the least. After graduating and just when I was starting to manage my grief, an old friend of mine and fellow actor took his life. It was another huge lesson in loss. Then I had the opportunity to do an actor’s dream role, Nurse Ratched, in a new immersive production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This production was extended twice and nominated for ten Stage Raw Awards. The experience of doing this play was emotionally loaded because my mom unexpectedly passed away two weeks into rehearsal. I put everything I was going through into my role. Being in a play during challenging times can act as a great anchor to life when ones world goes upside down.
After the show and a lot of grieving, I had reached my bandwidth of drama and sadness. I needed to laugh, I’ve always loved doing improv, but I felt it was time to do a stand-up comedy class. I ended up spending the next year doing stand-up steadily all over town. It gave me a new view on my life after so much loss. I was doing a show in the Belly Room of the Comedy Store on March 11th of 2020 and the next day, the club and venues all over LA closed for the pandemic.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I have a strong inner creative engine. I just adapt and figure things out. When I wasn’t acting, I worked as a video editor. I didn’t know how to edit, so I learned. When I wanted to act, I became a filmmaker, learning as I went along. It’s been an experimental process, but that is where the magic of creation lives for me. I’ve always had a deep longing to do something good with my time and energy and bring people together which has lead to social activism, coaching and teaching. I am a creative nurturer. I want my friends to develop their ideas as much as I want to develop my own, so that is why I am always co-creating projects with different women in my life. I am currently nurturing a script with a fellow actor and friend that we will shoot later this summer.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
During the COVID-19 crisis, I have learned the importance of slowing down and taking care of myself. I have also learned that you can create something really impactful without gathering in person. In the days following George Floyd’s murder, I reached out to a good friend from USC, Dee Dee Stephens. We talked about our sadness and frustration and we knew our community of artists were likely feeling the same way. So, in addition to protesting in the streets, we created a portal project where people could share their feelings through videos. We received over fifty videos of artists expressing themselves about how the murder made them feel. At that time, the news said the officer’s knee was on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, so we made five compilations all running at 8 minutes and 46 seconds. We looked at this project as a deposit box for collective grieving. We called it “Art for George Floyd” and eventually turned the project into a film. That film became an Official Selection of the Feedback Female Film Festival, the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival, the Toronto International Women Film Festival and most recently, Diversity in Cannes Film Festival. We are now working on our follow-up project, “Holding Space for the World We Want.” This project aims to continue the conversation on collective healing in a world where police brutality is the status quo.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iamcourtneylloyd.com
• Instagram: @iamcourtneylloyd
• Other: www.artforgeorgefloyd.com

Image Credits:
After Hours Theatre Co. Ali Ivosevich